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Defias123's avatar
Defias123
Seasoned Adventurer
3 years ago

Map Design Issues that are Still Present - Verticality and how it can be bad

One of the weakest and most annoying parts of the map design in this game is how vertical points are handled. Especially vertical flags. Overwatch points have always been a major point of frustration in some Battlefield maps and in 2042 they're the worse they have ever been. With poor entry vectors for attacking players, over-reliance on ziplines and elevators (which are horrible entry vectors that result in deaths more times than not), the ability to call down vehicles onto rooftops (why? Why do this?), specialists like sundance; the experience in dealing with high elevation points is not fun. I reckon that most of the map design issues would be far less IF these points did not exist. There's a good reason why these type of points were not common in previous battlefields. And if they were, they had a design which limited their impact. I will give you some examples. First, an example of a really bad map design in this regard.

In Orbital, the team that controls the launch tower has a tactical advantage over everything in red. They can more easily defend those flags from that point in red, they have height advantage on any fighting going on, they can parachute (or in sundances case fly to) all the flags quite easily. And attacking this position often takes a sizable force since all rooftops have a heavy emphasis on chokepoints. I have won and lost many games by being the team that holds this the most. And in this map, the team that spawns to the left often is "closer" and as a result, they have a map advantage. There's little to no view obstructions or a similar defensive location

Most maps have an issue like this. Kaleidoscope is another map that has such an issue. On the left side of the map, there's a single skyscrapper that has a capture point at the top and at the bottom. The team that owns that has a similar advantage over the map. Now on the opposite there is another skyscrapper that offers a similar advantage. However the big differing point in this is that the other skyscrapper is not standalone. It has a skyscrapper next to it that is of similar size and two smaller ones next to those. These provide view obstructions for the defenders of that flag AND provide attackers (mainly on the same size one) a foot hold into attacking it and putting pressure on the enemies without being "under" them.

A lot of maps have this issue where a single highest point in the map offers a much too large advantage. Stranded is another one with its boat and the flags on either side. Hourglass is the worse at this with one side having the skyscrappers and the rest of the map being mainly open. Spearhead isn't "too" bad with this, but I do find the rooftop of the two only square buildings to be a point of annoyance. Its not too bad in conquest, but in breakthrough its an absolute headache. The attacks always land up there and camp while the defenders don't have many tools to do anything about it.

Below to me is arguably one of the best maps created in an modern urban environment for Battlefield. Siege of Shanghai

Now when you hold point C, you have overwatch advantage over the red area. Like the previous map. However, what's important about this one is that because there are many tall buildings in close proximity to it, it allows those buildings to act as "cover" against the team that holds the middle building. Not only that, but some of the maps are either inside of buildings completely (Point D) or underground (Point B). Offering even further protection against "rooftops". Now you may be saying that well, they can get better overwatch by parachuting to one of the nearby buildings. This is half true because once you do that, you actually end up sacrificing overwatch to a portion of the map. So parachuting to the building next to B means you'll have less overwatch for right side of the map. The best part is that if team gets really annoyed by the middle building, they can destroy it! And boom, no more problem.Now the middle building is still a hassle to attack. But another important part about the attack is that the elevators are spread out and pointed to the pointed where it is kind of difficult to cover all of them. A lot of skyscrapers in 2042 do not do this. To me the best designed skyscrapers are probably the orbital launch building on the left + the lower right kaleidoscope skyscraper flag. Both of them are designed in a decent way that it is difficult to camp everything.

To me the major maps that have issues with vertical points right now is hourglass, kaleidoscope, orbital, stranded, discarded. The rest of them aren't perfect, for sure. But I think those maps I listed are the worse offenders.

And I am NOT saying that whoever owns these overpowered points is an immediate win. I still have played many games where we wont and didn't own those flags/points. But it does provide a map advantage to a certain team and its very effective if they know how to use it.

discussion

6 Replies

  • Mooselotte's avatar
    Mooselotte
    3 years ago

    Completely agree with your post. 

    We seem to have lots of maps that are either primarily flat, or flat with some skyscrapers that allow for some unprecedented movement and force projection. I think part of this is the controllability of the parachute and Sundance kits - earlier BF games had parachutes that were fare less controllable, so you couldn't reliably yeet yourself out of a helicopter and land EXACTLY where you wanted. I also do not think chute cutting and re-using were common in earlier titles like BF4 but may be misremembering. 

    Now we have people that can make the tactical decision to jump off their nest and land on the enemies flank and stack up a skill-less multi kill. It is "fun" for the person who does it, but is gamebreaking for everyone else as there isn't a sensible way to defend against this. 

    Fundamentally, we are also missing any maps with lots of medium (2-5) story tall urban buildings, a true urban battlefield environment. I sincerely hope Dice can shake things up and give us less maps that lean so heavily on the "flat plane with sporadic building clusters". We need our grand bazaar, our siege of Shanghai, etc. 

  • Defias123's avatar
    Defias123
    Seasoned Adventurer
    3 years ago
    @Mooselotte Agreed. I swear, most of my C5 kills are probably from suicide runs with Sundance. Just fly across a map to a tank. I use the tactic and have it done to me all the time, but its 100% overpowered and a garbage design.
  • RMEChief's avatar
    RMEChief
    Legend
    3 years ago

    I have played Orbital quite a bit and have never seen that as an issue. Most of the time there are a few snipers up there that get shredded by a helo, who then caps the point, and then the other team does the same thing.  For Orbital, there are two tall structures, at A1 and C2, that provide basically the same thing in terms of LOS. The difference is one is an objective at the top and the other one isn't.

    I don't think verticality is the issue. Maybe flag placement, spawn locations, Specialist's abilities, or call-ins on rooftops, but I don't think having elevation in the game is a bad thing. Otherwise, you are essentially playing Doom.

    I don't like the call-ins on buildings, and flag placements and spawn points could be a little bit more even in some cases, but for the most part, there seems to be a lot of other issues to address in this game before something like this is even considered. That's just my opinion.

  • Mooselotte's avatar
    Mooselotte
    3 years ago
    @Adamonic I don’t know if the OP is even calling for any changes in their post (tbh, I didn’t reread in full today), but I think they are more highlighting a flaw in Dice’s approach to map design.
    And I agree honestly, I think there’s some serious effects on map flow when one team can spawn and BASE jump into the enemy’s point.
    On Orbital its biggest effect is on the B1 and B2 points IMO. You will be fighting off a never ending supply of parachuting enemies, or snipers deploying into the hills around you with ease.

    You are right though, there is lots for them to address in this game. I just hope they change up their map design in future titles a bit.
  • Tank2042Man's avatar
    Tank2042Man
    3 years ago
    @Mooselotte I can't remember which game it was in, 4,1 or V, but when an enemy parachuted above they were briefly auto spotted on the mini map which was very helpful when tanking.
  • Defias123's avatar
    Defias123
    Seasoned Adventurer
    3 years ago
    @Mooselotte Yeah like the big thing is ok, you can have these points. But the other side of the map should have one of equal power for the other team. The thing that actually made me make this post finally was just before it, I was playing Orbital. Me and 3 others fought 3 infantry + 2 tanks while taking B1. Finally taking it. Right after that, they all spawned ontop of the building and poured over like a wave. The travel time from spawn to enemy capture point was so small, they minus well had been spawning next to it. We lasted a few mins but loss it again. Only way we could've countered that was we would've had to run over to their building, zipline up, then contest the point. Forcing them to spawn on the bottom instead of the roof.

    I think if they were to implement a solution, it would be something like moving the flag to the bottom floor. No spawn points on the roof, no flags on the roof. Would produce much better gameplay loops. Roof would still be there, but at least the flag owners would have to walk a bit and use the zipline to get up. And if you're camping up there, you're not defending the flag point "as well".

    I doubt any sorta of rework that results in removing these points is remotely close to on the table. They're probably not gonna touch the maps again after season 5 final rework. Heck, they'll probably announced the next Battlefield towards the end of the year haha.

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